


gallant gallants grumpy girlfriend

by fthh



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Slice of Life, bro... they're learning things about each other..., just something silly to pass the time :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26159197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fthh/pseuds/fthh
Summary: the thing is, Ingrid notices that things are a little off in the mornings when she sleeps over.naturally, she picks at the fraying threads until they unravel.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	gallant gallants grumpy girlfriend

**Author's Note:**

> i meant to write something short but here i am 2 days later... emerging as god's personal jester...
> 
> set in my [modern au](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554713) but i think it's ok to be read as a standalone :)

The first few times Ingrid sleeps over, she figures that Mercedes is a morning person. When she wakes up the bed is empty but still a little warm, and she’ll find Mercedes at the kitchen counter, silent, serene, still, sipping easily coffee from her silly blue mug.

She’ll greet with a cheerful little “good morning,” and will get a small “g’morning,” from her girlfriend. She’ll lean down to kiss the crown of her head. She’ll grab a bottle of water before heading out for her morning run.

She’ll come back and Mercedes will still be at the counter, her mug empty, the surface scattered with stuff she’s doing at the moment: sometimes it’s her baking ingredients, sometimes it’s her paperwork, sometimes she’ll be brewing tea for the two of them. She’ll smile at Ingrid, all warm and affectionate, and her eyes will be shiny and she’ll wrap her arms around Ingrid’s neck to pull her into a kiss.

And Ingrid will kiss her with all she has until Mercedes pushes her away and says, “Go shower. You stink.”

.

Ingrid notices, of course. The little eye twitch at the sight of Ingrid coming out from the bedroom. The almost-empty coffee pot next to her mug. The slight lilt to her words as Mercedes greets her good morning.

Ingrid is… curious. Something’s off, but she doesn’t know exactly  _ what,  _ and she doesn’t know how to bring it up, so she doesn’t. If Ingrid keeps picking at the fraying threads, then—

It’ll all unravel sooner or later.

She hopes it’s the former.

.

She wakes up earlier than usual when she sleeps over now.

She does so that weekend, even though her whole body is deliciously sore and aching, her muscles screaming for her to go back to bed for five more minutes, five more minutes, five more minutes…

The bed is empty, next to her, as is to be expected, but the sheets are still warm, still traces of Mercedes in the air, the smell of her coconut-scented shampoo tickling at Ingrid’s nostrils, still the thick blanket freshly pushed to her side of the bed.

Ingrid wakes up with a smile, of course. How could she not? She took Mercedes out on a date so successful last night Mercedes invited her to stay the weekend and promptly ravaged her against the front door as soon as she said an enthusiastic  _ yes _ to both the invitation and to  _ can I fuck you until all you remember is my name? _

“Good morning.”

Mercedes startles, almost dropping the pot of coffee her hands are so busy with. Ingrid slides a hand across her back in what she hopes to be a soothing motion. She kisses Mercedes’ bare shoulder, a silent  _ sorry. _

Mercedes chuckles, a low sound in her throat. Ingrid can almost taste the sleep in her voice. “... morning,” she says finally, silent.

They sit quietly at the counter, Mercedes waiting for the coffee to brew, Ingrid waiting for Mercedes to say something.

“So what do you wanna do today?”

Mercedes blinks at her, once, twice. “I… I had a whole thing, um. Planned. Bake together. Movies. If you want. Snuggles.”

Ingrid hums in happy acknowledgement, stays silent to prod Mercedes into elaborating.

“We could—” Mercedes’ grasp on her mug tightens, “—go. Um. Shopping… baking supplies.” Her brows knit together in frustration. She’s frowning. “Before baking. Pantry a little empty from last time. Don’t you usually have your morning runs?”

Ingrid blinks. Mercedes had spat out that last question through gritted teeth. A shudder runs through her, this image of Mercedes being decidedly  _ not _ gentle doing things to her, but that’s for another time.

“Yeah, I do.” She looks at the clock on the wall. “In half an hour, maybe. ‘S still too early. I wanna spend time with you, in the meantime.”

“That’s… nice.”

A silence, not entirely comfortable, blankets the room.

Ingrid adjusts the collar of her sleep tee, letting cool air seep in. “I—”

Mercedes blinks at her. There isn’t a trace of humour, there’s a lack of her signature softness. She’s rough and she’s bursting at the seams. Ingrid can see that, from her white-knuckle grip on the poor blue mug.

(Again, this is doing things to her, but that’s beside the point, Ingrid,  _ focus,  _ she berates herself.)

She pours coffee for Mercedes and herself once it’s ready, putting sugar and creamer into her own mug, leaving Mercedes’ drink bare. She doesn’t know  _ how _ Mercedes can drink something so bitter but hey, to each their own. Or something.

“Look,” Mercedes begins, after downing half a cup of (hot!) coffee. “I see what you’re doing. Okay, listen. Look.”

Ingrid waits. Mercedes finishes her cup before pouring more and chugging it in one go. They’re silent once again. Mercedes looks like she’s waiting for the caffeine to kick in, or she’s arranging her words. Both, maybe.

Finally she spins Ingrid in her seat, buries herself in the crook of Ingrid’s neck, hands on either side of Ingrid’s waist to steady herself in this precarious position.

“I’m not a morning person, okay? But you wake up so early and I don’t want to leave a bad impression on you, I guess? So I wake up early to have a full pot of coffee before you even leave bed. But I…”

Ingrid doesn’t say a word, both out of expectation that Mercedes has more to say and her being stunned into silence. Mercedes is  _ so close. _

A few minutes pass. The only sounds in the room are coming from Mercedes’ breathing, calm and drawn out, and Ingrid’s heartbeat, an irregular rhythm, a song she doesn’t know. There’s a burning sensation low in the pits of her stomach, travelling upwards to her heart, to her lungs. She doesn’t know a lot, but she has a vague idea what that feeling is.

“You’re so put-together all the time. I,” Ingrid starts. She looks for her words, plucks them from the air, runs them over in her mind. “It’s okay to not be all _ that _ when you’re around me, you know?”

Once she figures it out, it threatens to spill out of her, the feeling banging against the walls of her body, the only thing keeping it in her ribcage pushing it back with the solidity of her bones.

“I…  _ like  _ you as you are, so much, even the parts you think are unappealing.”

Mercedes’ soft breaths tickle her neck, but she moves a hand up Ingrid’s back in acknowledgement, and an attempt to scoot closer to her.

Ingrid sighs. It’s hard to get the words out when Mercedes is clinging onto her like this. It’s hard, in general, to say it, but—

“I’dbehonouredtobetheoneyoushowedyourselfto,” she spits out in one unbroken breath.

The chuckle that Mercedes lets out sends a shudder down her spine, and another as she presses a kiss right under her jawline, and another as she tells Ingrid, in a low voice, in a slow voice, to repeat what she’d said.

“I’d be honoured—” Ingrid swallows a moan when Mercedes kisses a particularly sensitive spot her under her ear, “— to be the one you showed yourself to.”

“In that case,” Mercedes stands up, kisses Ingrid on the lips, pulls away with a playful ‘pop’, and makes her way to the bedroom, “I’m going back t’bed.”

Ingrid gapes at her retreating figure. “But you… just had a pot of coffee?”

“Effects’ll kick in when I wake up,” she says simply, still slurring her words a little. “Have fun w’your run. Ha. Rhyme. Love you.”

“That’s not how it—” The door closes behind Mercedes before Ingrid can finish her sentence. “— works.”

_ Love. Love. Love. _

It’s the first time that word has been said out loud between them. (It isn’t the first time it’s floated in Ingrid’s mind, though.)

She chalks it up to Mercedes still not being fully awake when she’d said it. She tries to tamp down this wave of happiness and nausea. (This is real. This is real. This is real. Her first instinct is to run away, to retreat to a safe place, but… well. Mercedes is her safe place now, so where does she go from here?)

She cleans up the kitchen and goes for a run to let out her nervous energy.

.

Ingrid is a quick learner. She soon settles into a routine whenever she sleeps over: she wakes up with the sunrise. She spends a few minutes watching Mercedes slumbering peacefully next to her: light snores, wild bedhead, a trail of dried drool down the side of her mouth. It shouldn’t be a pretty sight, but, well.

She’s in love, she supposes.

She stretches and, as quietly as she can, slides out of bed with a change of clothes to go on her morning run.

It’s usually just after ten when she comes back with pastries for both of them. Today she’d bought a sweet bun trio to share.

She sits next to Mercedes on the bed, tucks away her messy hair to press a kiss on her girlfriend’s cheek. She’s met with a groan, and: “Go away, stinky, I have a girlfriend and I love her.”

Ingrid goes back out to brew a pot of coffee for the both of them. The smile on her face doesn’t fade away even a little bit.

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to the #1 mercigrid enablers on the tl [yocto](https://twitter.com/yoctogram_) and [rocky](https://twitter.com/sadsambharsobs) for a silly conversation during the humdrum of labs earlier this week :)


End file.
